its nice that they are saying that new units wont have defect, where do i get one of these from ? as my local stores have minibrutes but how long have they been there! so i guess if i get one from a local store, its russain roulette as weather it will be broken or notim suprised they havent recalled them to take them out of circulation. i guess ill see if i can purchase one direct from arturia site i really like the minibrute but if i got a defective one i would want an instant refund and then be forced to buy the inferior basstation.its really sad to hear all these problems with minibrutes

"We are of course aware of the issue that affected some Minibrute units in two specific production batches from 2013.We did investigate and found the cause of the issue. (At a certain points during the production of the keybed parts, the injection of plastic into the mold was not done at constant temperature. This created a weakness in some keys.)This concerns in fact a limited number of products even if people having issues are naturally more vocal -and have all the rights to be. Less than 4% of the keyboards within these two batches were affected. Still Arturia did replace all keybeds in their entire stock and so did their distributors as well. We are aware that some units have reached end-users this is why we extended the guarantee to three years on the MiniBrute keybeds. Of course we have put more quality controls on the production following this problem.In any case the Special Edition comes with keybeds that have been tested right. So you should not be scared.As a conclusion we understand the frustration of customers who trusted us and got issues with the MiniBrute. We have replaced faulty units as quickly as we could, along with our distribution partners and we will keep on doing so when needed. But it should not affect the value of a good product that is reliable and used by many musicians now."

First, the cause of the problem was confirmed: The injection of plastic into the mold was not consistent along the production of keybeds that were used for two MiniBrute production batches. This is very likely due to temperature changes along the production of these keybeds.

It is a sporadic problem that is very hard to track. There are hundreds of units that are perfectly fine, and sudenly there are 60 where the problem occurs on most products. Consequently there are countries where we never saw any issues, and others (like Russia) where they got a large number of defective units.

There is no good way to track if a keybed is fragile or not. The only good test we found is destructive in the sense that it will show if a keybed was faulty or not, but at the same time it may also damage perfectly functional keybeds. (This is in fact a stress test that we cannot efficiently use to distinguish units.)

What we did: replace keybeds in all stocks so any new unit sold is fine. This includes our stocks, our distributors' stock and most dealers' stocks.In addition we changed supplier for the keybeds and strenghtened controls over the production of the MiniBrute.

What we did not do: recall keybeds from end-users and exchange every MiniBrute unit at risk. This was too much for us to handle. In addition it would be excessive given the failure ratio we see -which is now around 9% for the units that embed keybeds from this production, but which is still bellow 4% if considering all problems on all MiniBrute units sold. It is not an excuse, but throwing away hundreds of units would be a waste in all respects and the situation does not call for that.

What we do toward musicians who have units at risk: we guarantee we will replace any keybed that is broken within the next three years. We will of course do it at no cost for the customer. Three years may look like an arbitrary figure, but the fact is that if no key was broken within the first weeks of use the unit is most likely perfectly fine. Three years allow us to give our distributors a clear operating process.

What should you do if you have a broken unit: send an email to support@arturia.com. In the first weeks the problem occur (let's say in the first couple of months after we discovered the problem) we did not have new keybeds for replacement, so there was lag in answering requests. But things are pretty much under control now. Arturia, once we hear from you, can then ask your local distributor to handle the reparation on our behalf. This distributor has keybeds from the new supplier, tech notes,.... Arturia is financially compensating all distributors for any replacement they have to handle so they are supposed to be efficient and proactive.

Alternately, you can go to your dealer or contact your local distributor directly and he should handle this easily without our intervention.

Units at risks are in between Numer 90000 and 12000 but we extended the extra-warranty to units in between 7500 and 13500.

Again, we are very sorry for this problem and I apologize in the name of Arturia. We try our best to deliver quality products and currently put more measures in place so you can trust Arturia instruments.

If some of you have received the replacement keybeds then let us know. I have an order number, an email and just waiting at this point. Seems like Arturia is respondingwell so far and trying to make things right.

PM sent. Thank you. I will add that Bruno has been helpful so I don't want to make it sound like nothing's happening. Last message I received from support was that they're being sent off last week. I'm just waiting at this point.

Got mine yesterday and installed it yesterday night, Thank you Arturia. Works great!By the way, I did a 9 minute on MY "how to replace" keybed video. I figured I'd video what I do and share my experience.Go to youtube and search "Arturia MiniBrute keybed replacement ."

I just went online to see reviews of the Minibrute before buying one to complement my BassStationII and SubPhatty.I couldnt in all seriousness buy one after reading this thread. This quality issue has been ongoing for months without formal response.Formal response is very light and questions regarding which serial numbers to avoid go unanswered.

I just went online to see reviews of the Minibrute before buying one to complement my BassStationII and SubPhatty.I couldnt in all seriousness buy one after reading this thread. This quality issue has been ongoing for months without formal response.Formal response is very light and questions regarding which serial numbers to avoid go unanswered.

It actually makes me worry about my Spark Le now.

yeah, sadly i don't blame you.

fwiw i had a spark and the build quality was top notch. i only sold it because it was a bit buggy (the software) at times but also mainly because it didnt fit my workflow as well as i thought it would

i bought both and have no regrets, how can you seriously say they are failing when they offer this support level, they are doing their best to correct this problem, this is just kicking nuts when they allready confirmed it to be a big mistake in the production, they are people and people make mistakes, if you are perfect i'd like to see your batteries and OS, i bet i can find several mistakes in your body firmware

I just went online to see reviews of the Minibrute before buying one to complement my BassStationII and SubPhatty.I couldnt in all seriousness buy one after reading this thread. This quality issue has been ongoing for months without formal response.Formal response is very light and questions regarding which serial numbers to avoid go unanswered.

It actually makes me worry about my Spark Le now.

I need to have my mind put at ease if I am to try to purchase a 3rd unit.